One of Mr. Roosevelt's speeches of the last few days
seems to have gone completely unrecorded in the British Press. That perhaps is not surprising, as it had little bearing on current politics, and was delivered on the same day—last Friday—as the notable address to the Pan-American Union. But it was relayed to English hearers, and many of us who know the charm of that white colonial home at Mount Vernon, by the Potomac, where George Washington lived and died, could picture the President standing on its porch commemorating the day, one hundred and fifty years before when Washington himself had sat there and received the messenger who brought him tidings of his election as first President of the United States. It is a little profane perhaps to refer to the occasion, in the war of 1812, when British ships sailed up the Potomac to the federal capital and their crews burned the White House and other public buildings. An American was discussing the occasion with an English visitor. "That," he mentioned, "was when you burned Washing- ton." "Oh, did we?" asked the Englishman with some mild interest ; " I thought we only did that to Joan of Arc."
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